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Biomedical subjects

J Escher

Publications and source records attributed to J Escher.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Cardiac manifestations of myotonic dystrophy.

Twenty-four patients with Myotonic Dystrophy (MyD), age 19-66 years, underwent non-invasive cardiac evaluation which included physical examination, resting and 24 h ECG recording, echocardiography, and multigated radionuclide (Tc99) scanning (MUGA) to assess left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Only 4 of the 24 patients studied did not display any cardiac pathology. Though most patients (20 out of 24) were free of cardiac symptomatology, 15 had abnormal resting ECG. In 12 of the patients mild rhythm disturbances were present in the 24 h ECG monitoring. Left ventricular contraction impairment was a most striking feature; it was noted in 8 patients, in whom the LVEF was below 50%. The apical region was the most affected. Seventeen patients showed abnormal echocardiographic findings: mitral valve prolapse was noted in 8, dilatation of left atrium in 5 and of the left ventricle in 2 of the 24 patients. No correlation between the severity of muscular impairment and the cardiac manifestation was seen. No correlation was found between disease duration or severity (as judged by the functional capacity of the patients) and its cardiac manifestations.

Adult↗

Analysis of ELISA hepatitis C virus-positive blood donors population by polymerase chain reaction and recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA). Comparison of second and third generation RIBA.

A new RIBA-3 (Chiron-Ortho Diagnostic System) was performed for discriminating uninterpretable results of RIBA-2. Recognition of antibodies to hepatitis C virus by RIBA-2 and RIBA-3 was compared among 95 ELISA-2 (second generation ELISA) positive blood donors and correlated with alanine-aminotransferase (ALAT) levels and viremia, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These studies led to three important conclusions. First, all ELISA-2-positive, RIBA-2-positive and ALAT-positive samples were found viremic compared with 73% of ELISA-2-positive, RIBA-2-positive and ALAT-negative samples. Then, the comparison of the different RIBAs allowed to conclude that RIBA-3 was more sensitive but less specific than RIBA-2. RIBA-3 was interesting to discriminate undetermined RIBA-2, owing to an improved specificity of C100-3 antigen. In fact, most of the C100-3 positive, RIBA-2 undetermined samples became RIBA-3 negative whereas C22-3 positive, RIBA-2 undetermined samples became RIBA-3 positive or undetermined. Finally, a significant correlation was found between the presence of antibodies against C33-c antigen and viremia.

Antigens, Viral↗